Tabletop Squadron Transcript – Season 2, Episode 15:
Do A Barrel Roll

Transcript by Tyler (Twitter: @Tyler_MoonSage)

## Intro

NICK: Hi everyone, and welcome to Tabletop Squadron, a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire actual play podcast. I’m Nick, your game master. Every other Thursday, our story follows a thief, a bounty hunter, and a slicer as they hunt for galactic treasure, staying away from a bitter rival and growing closer together.

This week we have a new podcast review! Dixie L. Ross, thank you for your kind words and we’re happy you’re enjoying the show.

Also, this week we have some new patrons to thank. Starting off, Dexter! Thank you so much for your support of the show. It means the world to us. Sentinel has everyone out combing the galaxy for clues right now. I’ve got index cards and red string. Do you think you can try and make some sense of this for us? I’m stumped.

Dominic, thank you for your support as well. This isn’t the most glamorous assignment, but I need you to go with HK on a solo mission. Your job is to be his conscience. I think I can get you secondary user privileges, so hopefully he’ll listen, but if you could keep him aimed in the right direction and not captured by the Empire that would be awesome.

Thank you both for your support.

Music credit and content warnings are available in the show notes this week.

So now, let’s get into the episode.

##

NICK: Hello! Welcome to Tabletop Squadron, Episode 15! It’s a lovely day, and I’m your hosting game master, Nick. Let’s all go around the table and everybody introduce themselves and say who you’re playing today, starting with Hudson.

HUDSON: Hi, I’m Hudson. I’m playing Tink, a Gigoran slicer, the one and only.

NICK: Until that arc where your clone shows up, you’re absolutely right.

HUDSON: Oh, you’re right.

NICK: [chuckles] Ooh, eh, it’s too late to edit it now. I guess people will just have to wonder about that. Up next we’ve got Cameron.

CAMERON: Hello. I’m Cameron, and I will be playing Karma Nailo, the Nautolan bounty hunter.

NICK: And last but not least we have Lilit.

LILIT: Hello. I am Lilit, and I will be playing Xianna’fan, a Twi’lek smuggler.

NICK: Fantastic. Before we get started with the recap, let’s do the Destiny Roll~!

CAMERON: One dark side.

LILIT: One dark side.

HUDSON: Two light side.

CAMERON: Yay Hudson~

NICK: Alright, two and two. So, when we last left off, you all were able to escape from prison, you left your friends that you had made in prison on a space station with some very crinkly and latexy disguises so that they wouldn’t look like prisoners anymore, and you collected your gear from where it had been stashed. Tink accidentally ended up with a Space BestBuy gift card, Karma showed off her fancy new armor, and Xianna had a lovely and heartwarming conversation with both Creamsicle and Nolaa.

CAMERON: Oh, and we learned what we’re gonna be doing for the rest of this season.

NICK: Oh yeah, and you learned—

[laughter]

LILIT: Oh. I thought we were gonna keep getting arrested and breaking out of increasingly more and more elaborate prisons.

NICK: No, that’s been done.

LILIT: Are we not doing a prison break season?

NICK: No. [laughs]

LILIT: I thought we were doing a prison break season.

HUDSON: I think we’re gonna do that until we find out that the real prison was our lives all along.

NICK: Oh… I was hoping you were gonna say “were the friends we made along the way.” [laughs]

HUDSON: No. [laughs]

LILIT: The real prison was capitalism.

[laughter]

NICK: So, we open on the Afternoon Delight popping out of hyperspace on the edges of a green and massive nebula. This is the Typhonic Nebula. The ship is covered in little statically electric remnants as it slowly enters into this area of space. You are here to attempt to recover the first of the Shattered Force items, the one that Sentinel had a lead on, and you know that it’s nestled at a specific coordinate on a distant moon deep within this nebula which doesn’t allow hyperspace travel.

You fly further and further into this space cloud, and we see that the gas of the nebula is a sickly green. A band of light pierces the entire region from a far distance, but otherwise the cloud is nearly featureless. There are sporadic floating asteroids that loom out of the mist as you inch your way through, but otherwise all you can see is green, green and green all the way through.

CAMERON (as Karma): Xianna, how did your conversation with Nolaa go?

LILIT (as Xianna): It went very well.

LILIT: Xianna walks up further into the cockpit and looks out the front windshield.

LILIT (as Xianna): Oh wow, that is a lot of green. It looks like the time I accidentally passed out in a big container of jello.

CAMERON (as Karma): What?!

HUDSON (as Tink): When did that happen?

LILIT (as Xianna): That was many years ago.

HUDSON (as Tink): Was it a party?

LILIT (as Xianna): I mean, I guess I must have passed out into it because I woke up into it. That’s what I remember.

CAMERON (as Karma): Okay. I was about to ask how it looked like passing out in jello, but the waking up, okay, yes.

LILIT (as Xianna): Well so I woke up and there was just green everywhere, and I had no idea what was happening, and I was like maybe I am still too high or something. Then I realized that the party had a large container of jello and I was using it as a pillow, so I was really just looking into the green jello. You would have thought that it was lime flavored, but it wasn’t, it was jogan fruit which is not green, so I have no idea who made jogan fruit jello and made it green, but… it might have been some sort of themed party, like for an event. Everything was green. I don’t know, I crashed it.

NICK (as HK): Xianna, are you referring to Saint Padawan’s Day?

LILIT (as Xianna): No. That is a made-up holiday.

NICK (as HK): Are you sure? That’s when they died the river around the imperial palace green.

LILIT (as Xianna): That sounds fake! Who would actually do that? You put dye into an entire river? Is that not really bad for like the ecosystem?

NICK (as HK): No, it’s made with natural flavors or whatever.

CAMERON (as Karma): Why are you flavoring the river?

LILIT (as Xianna): It still feels like it would be throwing off a lot of the important ecological balance.

NICK (as HK): Oh no, it’s fine, there hasn’t been any ecological living in that river in years.

LILIT (as Xianna): I guess in that case it is okay, but the water has to go somewhere unless it is just a big donut and it just circles forever.

CAMERON (as Karma): So is it a lazy river around the imperial palace?

LILIT (as Xianna): Ooh! Can we take a vacation and go to a lazy river? And we can float around and have the cooler in between our tubes, and we just float forever.

HUDSON (as Tink): Oh, is that the kind of rivers you can just pee in and no one knows you’re peeing?

CAMERON (as Karma): Nooo.

LILIT (as Xianna): I mean, that’s any river.

NICK: [laughs]

HUDSON (as Tink): Oh…

CAMERON (as Karma): No.

LILIT (as Xianna): Fish already pee into it.

HUDSON (as Tink): Yeah. Why can’t we?

CAMERON (as Karma): I… I mean, so if you’re in an actual river, sure, go for it—I’m from Glee Anselm, I can’t comment—but not in a pool setting.

LILIT (as Xianna): No, I don’t want to go to a pool one, I want to go to one of those actual rivers, because that way you can drink.

HUDSON (as Tink): Ooh.

LILIT (as Xianna): The park ones never let you drink. Well I mean, you can, but they get really mad at you and they are like “ma’am, you can’t have alcohol in here, this is for children,” and then you yell at them that yes you can, and then they kick you out.

NICK (as HK): Observation: Most local ordinances now make you pour your alcoholic beverages into water bottles to prevent littering. It’s a lot more work than it used to be.

LILIT (as Xianna): It also makes no sense, because wouldn’t you then have the extra bottle?

NICK (as HK): Well you put the water bottles into a cooler but you use, like, bike water bottles, and then you can squeeze a lime in there or whatever, but you use reusable containers. They don’t allow glass or cans anymore.

LILIT (as Xianna): How does that help with littering?

NICK (as HK): Because people don’t throw away their reusable containers as much.

LILIT (as Xianna): But then they throw away the cans at the beginning.

CAMERON (as Karma): Yes, but you have to transfer everything over prior to getting in the river.

LILIT (as Xianna): Ohh.

CAMERON (as Karma): So they’re assuming that, if you’re littering, you’re at least littering on land and not in the water.

LILIT (as Xianna): I mean, it both sounds bad, so…

NICK: So, as you are having this conversation, anyone who is looking out the front view screen of the ship make me a Perception check.

CAMERON: Okay.

LILIT: Okay.

CAMERON: What difficulty of perceptioning?

NICK: Hard.

CAMERON: Okay. One success, two advantages for Karma.

LILIT: Two successes.

HUDSON: One success for Tink.

NICK: As you are talking about various local alcohol ordinances you all see a Z-95 Headhunter stuck to the underside of an asteroid that’s rotating past the front of the ship, and you can see that there is a pilot inside of it watching your ship go by, so you immediately know that you’re not alone in this nebula. There is at least one other ship in here that’s geared up for combat actually. It has laser cannons on the wings.

HUDSON (as Tink): Let’s call them.

CAMERON (as Karma): Why? [chuckles]

HUDSON (as Tink): See if they’re friends.

LILIT (as Xianna): We don’t need to call them. Just look.

LILIT: Xianna does a big wave at them.

HUDSON (as Tink): I don’t know, that was a little… That was aggressive. That was an aggressive wave.

CAMERON: [laughs]

LILIT (as Xianna): It was not aggressive!

HUDSON (as Tink): I think it was aggressive.

LILIT (as Xianna): I mean, there is no reason to call and talk to them unless we have to.

NICK: The pilot in the Headhunter, they’re wearing a full helmet with a visor and a flight suit, but you see them hesitantly raise their hand and then wave back a little bit… and then you see them hit some buttons on their console and the ship starts up and starts to fly away. It quickly flies back the way that you all came.

HUDSON (as Tink): Hmm. Let’s just ignore that.

LILIT (as Xianna): That seems fine.

HUDSON (as Tink): Yeah.

CAMERON (as Karma): Weird.

NICK: And you get a ping on your com system. You are getting a message from an outside source.

CAMERON: Karma hits the button.

NICK: A little hologram of someone that you recognize to be Endo shows up on the screen. He appears to be sitting in a captain’s chair.

NICK (as Endo): Wow. Fancy meeting you all here out in this nebula. What are you looking for, friends?

LILIT (as Xianna): Ello. Who are you?

NICK (as Endo): I’m… Endo. You tried to kill me like three days ago.

LILIT (as Xianna): Oh! Oh yes. You got out as well?

NICK (as Endo): Yes. Thank you for your little distraction. It helped me and some of my favorite compatriots find a couple of exits.

LILIT (as Xianna): I mean, that is why we threw the riot, so you’re welcome. Not for you specifically, for us, but I felt like it was an added bonus if other people could escape.

NICK (as Endo): Several people did, yes, and now we run into each other out here in the middle of nowhere.

HUDSON (as Tink): I have a question, Endo. Are you still salty from that accidental… when I tripped and the knife ended up hitting you?

NICK: His face is very still, it’s made out of chitin and mechanics, but he leans into the camera a little bit so that his image gets bigger.

NICK (as Endo): Oh, that’s all water under the bridge, Tink. Why don’t we meet up and we can talk about it. What brings you out here?

HUDSON (as Tink): Oh. We—

CAMERON (as Karma): Sightseeing.

HUDSON (as Tink): [stammers] There’s a concert that we’re going to in a system far, far away. It’s actually a really good, uh, it’s a concert series of, um, trip hop and Dantooinese speed gospel.

NICK (as Endo): Really? And it doesn’t have anything to do with the Imperial patrols headed this way or the valuable artifact located somewhere in this nebula?

LILIT (as Xianna): No. We are going to the music festival. We are making flower crowns and everything. Do you want a flower crown as well?

NICK (as Endo): I don’t know. Boys? Do we want flower crowns?

NICK: Flip me a dark side point as a series of proton missiles come curling around from the edge of one of these asteroids and headed straight towards the ship.

LILIT (as Xianna): Oh. Is that a no on the flower crowns then?

NICK: You’re gonna have to make a Piloting check to dodge these.

CAMERON: [sighs] Okay.

HUDSON (as Tink): Karma, save us!

CAMERON: What’s the difficulty of my Piloting check?

NICK: This one is average.

LILIT (as Xianna): Tink, I know you were lying about the music festival, but that is a thing we should do.

HUDSON (as Tink): Oh really? You like those genres?

LILIT (as Xianna): No, just in general, we should go to one, because you would look very cute in a flower crown.

HUDSON (as Tink): Aw.

LILIT (as Xianna): And we can get like matching short-shorts.

HUDSON (as Tink): What if it’s like a metal festival where flower crowns are not permitted?

CAMERON (as Karma): Flower crowns are always permitted.

NICK: [laughs]

LILIT (as Xianna): Yeah. We can go to a metal music festival. We will just get black and red flower crowns and they will have spikes and horns on them.

HUDSON (as Tink): Ah…

LILIT (as Xianna): And then we can get matching short-shorts that are like pleather.

HUDSON (as Tink): Got it.

LILIT (as Xianna): Or like that shiny vinyl stuff. It is so uncomfortable and it does not breathe, but it looks so cool. And we can have like fringe jackets or cute little bralette tops. It would be very fun. You just would not be allowed to drink or eat anything there, okay? Because you are trying to keep your straightedge, so you would have to bring your own water.

HUDSON (as Tink): Wait. What about straightedge where you can’t eat?

LILIT (as Xianna): Well because… it’s a music festival.

HUDSON (as Tink): Ohh, they’re gonna spike-

LILIT (as Xianna): You can’t just take water other people give you.

HUDSON (as Tink): It could have, uh…

LILIT (as Xianna): Unless it is the medic tent, then you can take that water, but any other water, no.

HUDSON (as Tink): Got it. That is definitely a missile coming this way.

NICK: Yup.

CAMERON: Yup.

LILIT (as Xianna): It is, but for some reason it is taking a very long time to get here.

[laughter]

CAMERON: Yup!

LILIT (as Xianna): It is almost like it is being shot through jello. Very weird how that works.

CAMERON: It’s a really slow-moving missile. Three successes on my Piloting check.

NICK: Three successes. So describe how you maneuver the ship to dodge these missiles as they crash into an asteroid next to you instead of hitting you.

[action techno begins]

CAMERON: We see the missile coming. Karma just turns the ship, and it should not be able to do a barrel roll, it was not built for this, but it does one anyway… it’s just a very slow, lumbering barrel roll. [laughs]

NICK: So we see the Afternoon Delight, which is kind of shaped like a space shuttle with two shipping containers welded to either side, just slowly loop its way around the trail of these missiles as they crash into the rock behind you, and the ship starts to emit alarms as flecks of asteroid pepper the hull. You can see on your radar that there are multiple contacts coming your direction from different ways through the nebula, and you hear Endo say:

NICK (as Endo): Well, if you’re not gonna give us the directions we’ll just have to pull it from your ship’s computer after we destroy it.

LILIT (as Xianna): To the music festival? We can give you directions. Like, it is available on the holonet.

NICK (as Endo): We know that you’re here for a Force artifact, and we’re gonna get it.

NICK: And, initiative.

CAMERON: Three successes, one advantage.

LILIT: One advantage. Love some blank dice.

HUDSON: Three successes.

NICK: Roll me two greens and a yellow, please.

CAMERON: [laughs] Fuck. Four successes and a triumph.

NICK: Oh wow! Roll that for me again?

CAMERON: No, I don’t think I will. [chuckles] Ha-ha, I didn’t. It’s only three successes and two advantages that time. HK got a success, two advantages and a triumph.

NICK: Okay. Y’all have a couple of advantages and a triumph to spend. Is there anything about this setting that you would like to use to your advantage or add to the scene to make it more advantageous for you?

[action techno ends]

HUDSON: Is he still on the holo projector?

NICK: Sure.

HUDSON (as Tink): Alright Endo, this is the begin-do of your end-o.

[laughter]

NICK: [struggles to find words]

NICK (as Endo): What?! … Cut the connection!

CAMERON: [laughs]

NICK: He gestures to the hologram and it cuts off. He will have some black dice for emotional concerns.

LILIT (as Xianna): Oh, should Tink and I go to the guns, start doing the pew-pews?

NICK (as HK): Maybe it would be better if I was the second gunner and Tink can try to repair the ship.

CAMERON (as Karma): Yep, was about to suggest that.

LILIT (as Xianna): Oh, that works too.

HUDSON (as Tink): I’ll repair the ship. I seem to have developed a little bit of a knack for that.

CAMERON (as Karma): Well yeah, you’re the mechanic.

LILIT (as Xianna): Yes. You have like a degree in computers.

HUDSON (as Tink): It’s a very broad spectrum of things you learn when you’re learning “computers” in general. It’s just like saying oh, you’re good at life, like there’s just so many things encompassing life.

CAMERON: [laughs]

LILIT (as Xianna): No, I know lots of people who are good at, like, life. It’s mostly knowing how to do your taxes.

HUDSON (as Tink): Ah.

NICK (as HK): And you should know that my life is essentially computers.

LILIT (as Xianna): That is why I’m not good at life, because I have never filed my taxes.

HUDSON (as Tink): Ooh, that’s more dangerous than anything we’re doing this entire time. You might get on that. That’s—

LILIT (as Xianna): Yeah. No, I am legally dead, so I can’t file my taxes.

HUDSON (as Tink): Oh. They’ve gone after people after the grave, so…

LILIT (as Xianna): I also burned up my Social Security card.

HUDSON (as Tink): Now you got ‘em. Checkmate, government.

LILIT (as Xianna): Yeah. What are they going to do about that?

[laughter]

NICK: And the ship begins to be rattled by laser fire.

CAMERON: Paying attention.

LILIT: We’re having this conversation on the way out of the cockpit!

NICK: Okay.

LILIT: And we have coms!

CAMERON: I flipped on the ship-wide coms. We can now just yell at each other and we’re all basically in the same room.

NICK: Yeah. So first up is an NPC, and if you could roll me two greens and a yellow, please, Cameron, against a hard difficulty.

CAMERON: Okay. One failure, one advantage, and a triumph.

NICK: Interesting. Okay.

CAMERON: Yes.

NICK: So coming from behind an asteroid you see a YT-2400. It’s like a sleek, fast space freighter, but where it normally has a rotating cannon it has one single larger laser attached. It fires a green bolt at you and it just misses, but because it’s coming from a fairly far distance as this freighter starts to accelerate towards you it does strike an asteroid in the cloud which explodes outward in a shower of debris that makes it harder to pilot, so your next Piloting check will have a black die on it.

CAMERON: Great.

NICK: Up next we have a PC slot. As you scan around you can see that there’s two Z-95 Headhunters that are approaching from behind and this YT-2400 freighter as well is on its way. Who wants to go first?

LILIT: I mean, I guess I can shoot.

NICK: Sure.

LILIT: I’m assuming that is a Gunnery check.

NICK: Yup.

LILIT: I don’t actually have… And what would the difficulty be?

NICK: Right now they’re at long range, so it would be hard.

LILIT: One failure, one advantage.

NICK: Okay. So, you swing your seat around. I don’t know if you remember, but the gunnery turrets are stationary plush recliners and then you have a little track ball that moves the turret around independently of where you’re sitting, and you spin it around and fire quickly but it strikes more of the rocks which are seeming to increase in frequency and explodes some stone, peppering through their shields and weakening the shields of the opposing ships.

We are up to another PC slot. Do we wanna have HK try and shoot?

CAMERON: Yeah~

NICK: Okay. So HK, from the other gun on the Afternoon Delight, says:

NICK (as HK): Acquiring targets. Firing.

CAMERON: Is he gonna be four greens or does he have any Gunnery?

NICK: Three greens and a yellow actually. He has a point in Gunnery.

CAMERON: Oh, wow~

NICK: Mm-hmm.

CAMERON: Still at long range?

NICK: Yep, still long range. Nobody’s moved yet.

CAMERON: Cool. Two advantages.

NICK: HK fires and the Headhunter he was targeting pirouettes out of the way gracefully and the blast disappears into the nebula cloud.

NICK (as HK): Oh, that’s weird. I really expected to hit somebody with that. Xianna, I take back all the mean things I was thinking about how you missed.

LILIT (as Xianna): Aw, thank you.

NICK (as HK): Maybe don’t miss next time though.

LILIT (as Xianna): I will try, but I am also not trained at this, but I think you are.

NICK (as HK): Disapproving grumble.

LILIT (as Xianna): It’s okay, Hank. I will make you a very cute flower crown that will match with your, like, metal.

NICK: Up next is an NPC slot. One of the Headhunters accelerates to close the range and fires another brace of proton missiles at you all. I need you to roll two greens and a yellow. Medium range, average difficulty.

CAMERON: So the Afternoon Delight does have defense.

NICK: Okay, yeah, add the black die for the defense now that we’re in combat.

CAMERON: Cool, and are they shooting us from behind?

NICK: Yes.

CAMERON: Okay. I’m gonna need to know which direction they’re shooting from, because it changes depending on which direction.

NICK: Right. Yeah. They’re still behind.

CAMERON: Alright. So two greens, a yellow, a black, and then the two purple?

NICK: Yep.

CAMERON: One success, two advantages.

NICK: So these are modified and they seem bigger than what you’re used to seeing, and you are struck with several of these proton missiles for 8 damage.

CAMERON: We’ve got 3 Armor.

NICK: That was a pretty big hit.

CAMERON (as Karma): Guys, their guns are bigger than our guns, just FYI.

HUDSON (as Tink): Oh, okay, I have an idea.

NICK: Cool, it’s a PC slot, go ahead.

HUDSON: Alright. So, I want to be able to spoof one of the largest Empire ships ever coming over radar toward our ship so it scares everybody off.

NICK: Okay. Are you gonna make a death star or like a super star destroyer?

HUDSON: Super star destroyer coming towards us that will show up on everyone’s radar.

NICK: Okay. That would be a Computers check. It will be hard, because you’re spoofing a radar signal and trying to make them not realize it’s coming from you all, and it will have two black die because you’re in a nebula.

CAMERON: [laughs]

HUDSON: So would this be Code Breaker because I am breaking code or decrypting communications?

NICK: Yeah, I would say that since you’re trying to spoof into their stuff you could use that.

HUDSON: Okay, then I only have one black die, so I have four yellows, a green, three purples, two blue, and one black.

CAMERON: Ha!

NICK: Nice.

HUDSON: I have four successes and two advantages.

NICK: Alright! Talk me through what you’re doing.

HUDSON: So, I think to myself how can I help the situation? So I put on a camouflage bandana and I get my headphones, that are still wired because I’m old school, I don’t have wireless headphones like all the other cool kids, and I put them in my ears and I start playing Fortunate Sun by Creedence Clearwater Revival…

[laughter]

HUDSON: …and just like getting in the zone and focusing. We don’t have rights to that song, do we?

NICK: No.

CAMERON: No!

LILIT: Absolutely not.

[laughter]

HUDSON: Okay. So, I decide to break into the alert systems of all the ships surrounding us and make it so that it looks like a star destroyer is coming toward our ship and inadvertently all the other ships so it’ll scare them away.

NICK: Okay. Cameron, make me a hard Willpower check with two greens please.

CAMERON: Two successes, but three threats.

NICK: Heheh.

CAMERON: The ship falls prone.

[dramatic bass noise plays quietly in the background]

NICK: The ship falls prone. Yeah, so… do it for me one more time?

CAMERON: A success, two threats.

NICK: Oh, interesting. So the Z-95 Headhunters, Tink, you get into their systems first and you broadcast this, and one of the ships starts to wobble like it’s looking like it’s going to turn around, and it bounces off of an asteroid taking some damage but it does not actually get destroyed, and the other one continues onward. So, you can tell you’ve made the pilots very nervous but they’re more scared of Endo than they are of the Empire and they’re continuing on.

HUDSON: Yeah!

LILIT: Neat.

HUDSON: “It ain’t me. It ain’t me!”

[laughter]

LILIT: We can’t use any of that.

HUDSON: I know.

NICK: We’re to our last PC slot.

CAMERON: Alright. I’mma fly?

NICK: Okay.

CAMERON: Away? [laughs]

NICK: Away? Okay.

CAMERON: [exasperated exhale]

NICK: Are you doing any specific maneuvers or anything, or are you…?

CAMERON: Um…

HUDSON: “Do a barrel roll!”

NICK: That’s an actual thing.

LILIT: I don’t—Can we do a barrel roll? I don’t know.

HUDSON: The GM just said it’s an actual thing we could do.

CAMERON: I managed one earlier, but…

NICK: It wasn’t pretty.

CAMERON: I am going to do Evasive maneuvers as my maneuver.

NICK: Okay.

CAMERON: So what this will do is, I’m just making it harder for everyone basically. It makes ships shooting at us upgrade the difficulty by one but then it also, I think, does the same thing to us.

NICK: Okay.

CAMERON: Just because I’m no longer moving in a predictable way. That’s my maneuver. My action, I’m gonna do Gain the Advantage, so we’re basically setting us up to be able to shoot one of the ships really good, and then there’s a lot of other words for how the difficulty of this is determined.

NICK: What if we just set it to hard and keep going?

CAMERON: Okay. Because it’s the relative speeds of the ships or vehicles involved in the attack—

NICK: No, we’re not doing ship speed and all that shit. No.

CAMERON: [laughs] Thank you.

HUDSON: They’re moving at 60 corks per second.

NICK: Thank you, Hudson.

CAMERON: Are y’all good if I use a light side point to upgrade this?

HUDSON: Yeah!

LILIT: Sure.

CAMERON: Because I have a lot of purples and blacks in this. Okay, one success, two threats.

NICK: Nice. So what does successfully gaining the advantage do?

CAMERON: Well, since you asked, if the check succeeds the pilot ignores all penalties imposed by his own or his opponent’s use—excuse me, use better pronouns—of the Evasive Maneuver starship. Cool, so we now don’t get bothered by my Evasive Maneuvers.

NICK: Cool.

CAMERON: So everybody upgrades to hit us.

NICK: Very good. Are you trying to maintain distance or let them get closer? That’s the last thing I need to know.

CAMERON: They can get slightly closer.

NICK: Like to medium range?

CAMERON: Yeah.

NICK: Okay. Describe how you evasively maneuver but keep the shots lined up for HK and Xianna.

CAMERON: Karma is flying the Afternoon Delight as she would a much smaller, more manageable ship that just flies better in general, but somehow it’s working. Part of the reason that it is working is that she’s not particularly doing evasive maneuvers like doing zigzags or anything but she’s managing to do things that no one would expect a ship of this size to be doing, like the barrel roll mentioned earlier.

NICK: Mm-hmm.

CAMERON: And is cutting it really close on some asteroids to turn and stuff, and the Afternoon Delight is flying more as if it is in a dogfight and is an active participant in said dogfight where it really shouldn’t be.

NICK: [laughs] Cool. All of these maneuvers allow the other three ships to get closer, but they are really having trouble zeroing in because of how erratic the ship is moving. We are to the last Headhunter’s spot. If you could roll me two greens and a yellow versus hard difficulty still. They’re closer but they’re having trouble lining up with you, trying to hit you with laser cannons.

CAMERON: One threat!

NICK: Oh, they totally miss, and they actually impose issues upon their other ships as they try to maneuver into a good shot, and their shields kind of overlap and it bounces the other Headhunter out of the way. Ah, that’s a bummer. We’re back to the top where the YT-2400 loops around, disappears into the clouds as you all are dashing through this nebula, and a little while later they come straight at you, head-on, firing their large laser again.

CAMERON: Okay.

NICK: It’s going to be hard difficulty because they’ll get to medium range before they fire but your evasive maneuvers are making that much more difficult, and they’re shooting with two greens and a yellow.

CAMERON: Alright, and they have two black dice because we have 2 Forward Defense.

NICK: Oh okay, cool.

CAMERON: Three failures and one threat.

NICK: Wow.

HUDSON: They explode!

CAMERON: They got a lot of double failures. [laughs]

NICK: They’re really struggling, Karma’s just out-piloting them, and HK and Xianna’s shooting is also making them have to dodge out of the way, and they blow past, and you can just see into the cockpit of this YT-2400 as they fly over you, inverted, and you can see Endo sitting at a command chair and pointing to his pilot to do something, and they whiz by. We’re to a PC slot.

LILIT: I will shoot somebody. What range are we now at?

NICK: You’re at medium range.

LILIT: Do we have blue dice at the moment?

NICK: Yes, you have a blue die from the various shenanigans going on.

LILIT: Okay. That is two successes and two advantages.

NICK: Cool. How much damage does your laser turret do?

CAMERON: Six.

NICK: So that’s 8 damage total. Were you shooting at one of the Headhunters—the knock-off X-Wings—or the freighter?

LILIT: I was shooting at the Headhunter.

NICK: Okay, so Xianna, you manage to hit one of these light fighters, and you are able to disable its shields and destroy it.

LILIT: Well, Xianna pulls the trigger and it shoots a laser, and then the laser hits the ship, and it makes a fun little explosion we can hear even though that’s not how it works.

NICK: [laughs]

LILIT: It’s very nice. There’s fire involved as well. You know, very scientifically grounded fire explosion that we can hear.

NICK: [laughs] The engines tear themselves apart in a blossom of explosion, and that ship is gone.

LILIT: It also somehow looks like the explosion is superimposed over the backdrop of space.

CAMERON: [laughs]

NICK (as HK): Xianna, that was a very good shot.

LILIT (as Xianna): Thank you, Hank.

NICK: And we move on to another PC slot. Should we have HK go or Tink?

CAMERON: I say have HK shoot.

HUDSON: Yeah.

NICK: Okay. HK says…

NICK (as HK): Alright, let’s see if I can do the same thing.

NICK: …and he shoots at the other Headhunter. He is going to take a maneuver to aim, so give him an extra blue die. He’s three greens and a yellow, this is average difficulty, and he has an additional blue die because of all the shrapnel that these Headhunters have caused for themselves.

CAMERON: Okie-dokie. [snickers] Well, that ain’t great, Hank. Two advantages.

NICK: [laughs]

CAMERON: I didn’t roll any successes or any failures. It’s just threats and advantages, and blank dice.

NICK: Wow~ Okay. HK fires rapidly and manages to hem the other two ships close together so they’re not able to maneuver as well, so they’ll have black dice on their actions, but he is not able to hit them as they are too maneuverable and HK is having a little bit too much fun pressing the trigger button more than actually hitting anything.

HUDSON (as Tink): Hank, why are you so shitty at this today?

LILIT (as Xianna): Yes. Maybe I won’t make you a flower crown. I’ll just make you like a silly headband. It won’t be as cool as us.

NICK (as HK): Irritated groaning noise. Look, I’m trying the best I can, but I do not need a flower crown.

LILIT (as Xianna): You can still wear the matching short-shorts.

NICK (as HK): Good, that was the part I was concerned about.

NICK: The last Headhunter is going to go, firing another missile at you all. It’s going to be hard difficulty. They have two black dice, but they are rolling two greens and a yellow.

CAMERON: One threat!

NICK: [sighs] They’re really just struggling.

[groovy rock music begins]

So we zoom out and we see, through this green cloud, the Afternoon Delight spiraling and juttering in between obstacles and the mist, and this YT-2400 and this little knock-off X-Wing both flying after it, and there’s lasers and missiles flying in both directions, it’s lit up, it’s very exciting, and no one’s hitting anything. Up next we have a PC slot. We could either do Piloting or Tink could try to repair the ship a little bit.

HUDSON: How damaged are we?

CAMERON: Five out of 25.

HUDSON: Yeah, I can repair the ship.

HUDSON (as Tink): Guys, the ship’s butt is hurt.

LILIT (as Xianna): Oh no, not the butt!

HUDSON (as Tink): Yeah, it has a… has a few scratches. It has some booboos, some ouchies. You know what, I’ll take care of it.

HUDSON: So I walk to the butt of the ship.

LILIT (as Xianna): I don’t think it is technically called the butt. I think it is called the ass.

HUDSON (as Tink): Ohh.

CAMERON (as Karma): No-no-no, I think it’s aft.

LILIT (as Xianna): No, it is ass.

HUDSON (as Tink): I think it’s ass. I think… I think Xianna’s right.

LILIT (as Xianna): Yeah.

CAMERON (as Karma): Eh, okay.

LILIT (as Xianna): Why would you call it aft? That makes no sense. That is like made-up. The ass is a real word.

HUDSON: So, I see that the ship has been hit really hard in the butt, so the wall is kinda shaking like it’s about to fly off, so what I do is I find a mixture of metal and cardboard and I just tape up a wall in front of the wall so if it falls off we have secondary wall.

NICK: Wow, okay. Roll me a Mechanics check at average difficulty to repair this missile impact site.

[groovy rock music ends]

HUDSON: Two triumphs with their successes, four additional successes, and three threats.

NICK: Okay, so you completely repair the damage. What do you spend two triumphs on? You don’t even need the triumphs to repair the damage, so… Do you find something cool? Do you somehow manage to damage one of the other ships? What happens?

HUDSON: I just got this inspiration to start painting a mural with spray paint cans, but it’s like really crappy and we’re in the middle of a battle so I’m not gonna spend a ton of time on it, but I start spray painting it and I trip and a spray paint can kind of breaks through one of the exhaust and floats out through space. You can see the can flipping and flipping and flipping and then it hits the window of one of the Headhunter ships and just explodes. They can’t see anything anymore.

CAMERON: [laughs]

NICK: Oh my gosh. Let’s say it fell into one of the trash chutes and got jettisoned.

HUDSON: Yeah.

NICK: And you fall prone.

[dramatic bass noise]

HUDSON: Yes.

NICK: But we see a droid flying a Headhunter spinning in towards you, and then there’s the slow tumble of this can of spray paint, and then it hits on the front of their ship, explodes in a red cloud and they can’t see anything, and then a couple of seconds later they smash into an asteroid because they’re flying really fast through an asteroid field. You’re down to just the YT-2400 that has Endo and his crew on it. We’re to the last PC slot.

CAMERON: I’m going to continue Evasive maneuvers and trying to gain the advantage with my Piloting check. Is it still a hard Piloting?

NICK: Yeah.

CAMERON: Two successes and four threats.

NICK: Interesting. While they are not able to target you in an effective way they are able to start predicting what your dodging patterns are, so it’s going to be a harder shot, but if they get lucky they’re gonna hit somewhere more important. They’ve started shooting into a specific vector because you keep dodging into that vector which makes you have to change what you’re doing.

We are back to the top, and they are going to fly around in a big loop again and attempt to strafe the top of the ship and stay out of their gun range. This is going to be average, because they’re gonna close in to close range to try to shoot you, and they are shooting their big old laser, and flip me a dark side point to upgrade that to two yellows and a green, and it’s going to be average difficulty. They do have two black dice though. But yeah, they’re shooting the side of your ship this time.

CAMERON: Okay. Port or starboard? … It doesn’t matter, they’re the same.

NICK: Port.

CAMERON: One failure.

NICK: Wow. So they buzz by, they’re just really struggling to hit. You’re able to continually dodge them after the initial missile volley, and they are close to you and pretty much exposed as their weapons recharge. We are to another PC slot.

HUDSON (as Tink): Let’s ask them to surrender!

CAMERON (as Karma): Just shoot ‘em.

HUDSON (as Tink): That seems needlessly—Well, I guess he does want to kill me, doesn’t he?

CAMERON (as Karma): Yeah, they shot us first.

LILIT (as Xianna): Yes.

CAMERON (as Karma): And if we scare him enough because we shoot him enough maybe he’ll just jump out of his ship and fall into space.

LILIT (as Xianna): Or we just shoot them until the ships blow up and then they are dead.

CAMERON (as Karma): That appears to be what he does is he jumps off of things and disappears into space. There’s been a pattern.

LILIT (as Xianna): I can shoot.

LILIT: Are we at medium range?

NICK: You’re at short range now.

LILIT: Ooh. Do I have any blue dice? I believe so. And I will aim. … No good, and no good. Two failures, three advantages.

NICK: Okay. You herd this ship down towards the underside of your ship where it gives HK a clean shot, so he’ll have some blue dice on his, but you all are just this spiraling ballet of piloting acumen. HK’s going to go. He’ll aim, so it’ll be three greens and a yellow and a blue die versus one purple.

CAMERON: Does he get another blue die from Xianna’s advantage?

NICK: Oh yeah, for gaining the advantage he has two more blue die.

CAMERON: Thank you. You can’t short-change Hank. We have to let him murder things good. Well, the purple die is blank, so…

NICK: Oh.

CAMERON: Let me math real quick. Five successes and five advantages!

NICK: Oh… Hey! Do we wanna roll on the ship crit chart?!

CAMERON: [gasps] Yeah!

LILIT: [gasps] Yeah~

NICK: What’s the crit rating on those laser cannons?

CAMERON: Three.

NICK: Okay, so it’s just one crit then.

CAMERON: The only time we’ve ever rolled on the ship crit chart is when we were trying to roll on the Human crit chart and… we were wrong.

NICK: Yeah.

[laughter]

CAMERON: That is a 96.

NICK: What’s a 96 do?

HUDSON: Black hole is formed.

NICK: [laughs] Space-time destroyed. Game over.

CAMERON: A 96, Engine Damaged: The ship or vehicle’s maximum speed is reduced by 1 point, to a minimum of 1, until the critical hit is repaired.

NICK: Okay. Both of these large ships—the Afternoon Delight is a bit larger than the YT-2400, but they’re spinning around each other, and HK finally says…

NICK (as HK): Oh, maybe if I just destroy the engines they’ll leave us alone.

NICK: …and there’s a long pause, and a single burst of blaster fire strikes the engine cluster on the back of the ship and it immediately starts to belch fire and smoke and go slower and slower, and you are now able to completely outdistance it. You could just leave it in the nebula and it’s not gonna be able to find you anymore, or you could try and kill it, up to you.

CAMERON (as Karma): Nice shot, HK.

NICK (as HK): Thank you. The previous shots were me calibrating to this gunnery turret as I am a consummate professional.

CAMERON (as Karma): Mm-hmm!

LILIT (as Xianna): You have won back a flower crown.

NICK (as HK): I would like to exchange my flower crown for additional vinyl shorts.

LILIT (as Xianna): You want to just wear two pairs?

NICK (as HK): Maybe I’ll change colors halfway through.

CAMERON (as Karma): Okay?

LILIT (as Xianna): I mean, okay.

HUDSON: I call Endo on the holo phone.

NICK: He picks up immediately. There’s sparks shooting in the background that you can see picked up on the hologram. You’re still in the rear of the ship, but you hit the com button that’s next to the door, because there’s little holo coms in each room.

NICK (as Endo): [angrily] What?!

HUDSON (as Tink): I think someone owes someone else an apology for being a little bit mean earlier.

NICK (as Endo): Oh, I’m sorry, did the fact that you destroyed two ships with friends in it and the fact that we’re trying to steal things from you not show that we’re enemies?

HUDSON (as Tink): I’m just saying you have a chance to turn things around as your ship is blowing up in front of you.

NICK (as Endo): No, it’s just really damaged. It’s not gonna blow up.

HUDSON (as Tink): Oh, it’s… Alright, it was great talking to you.

[laughter]

NICK: I was gonna give you the chance to roll like an Intimidation check or something, but—

HUDSON: Well yeah, because we’re gonna blow up the ship. I just didn’t wanna get in the way.

[laughter]

NICK: Are you just gonna kill him?

HUDSON: Yeah, we’re just gonna kill him.

NICK: Okay.

CAMERON: Tink’s like “Alright, that was your chance, nah.”

NICK: Okay, and you hang up. We’re to… That NPC’s dead. We’re to another PC slot. Tink, did you wanna try to disable them or hack their system, or do we wanna just let the gunners go again?

HUDSON: I just want the gunners to kill it.

NICK: Okay. Lilit, you wanna shoot these motherfuckers?

LILIT: Sure.

NICK: They’re still at close range. Their speed is down. You get two blue dice, and you can get another blue die for aiming, and it’s one purple.

LILIT: I will aim then.

NICK: Okay.

LILIT: That is three successes and two advantages.

NICK: Alright, yeah. You’re able to disable this ship, dramatically. Where do you shoot it?

LILIT: The ass.

NICK: You shoot it in the ass! The engines flair and explode outwards, and the ship begins to drift dead in space. Tink, the com call that you had connected to Endo had been trying to reconnect with you as Endo tried to call you back when you hung up, and it goes dead. The ship is destroyed. You have completely defeated it.

You’re able to fly off into the nebula. You can see that the ship was leaking atmosphere behind you. It’s done for. After taking some quick turns and navigating a little bit closer you’re able to find this small moon nestled inside the middle of the nebula.

After you pull into the moon you’re able to find a small square building nestled into a crater on the north pole of this moon and you figure that that’s probably your destination, and we see you set down and the ramp drop and the four of you stepping off of the ship, and you have those clear breathing masks with the tubes that connect to their belt because there isn’t good atmosphere on this little moon, and they walk towards the low square building. That’s gonna be the end of the episode.

ALL: Ba-naaa~!

## Outro

CAMERON: Thanks for listening to Tabletop Squadron. If you enjoyed our show, please consider leaving a review on your podcast listening app of choice. Reviews will help new listeners to find the show, and every time we get one the squad gets warm fuzzies.

If you’re so inclined, you can also help support the show through our Patreon which can be found in the show notes, on our website, and basically anywhere else we post things. We have all sorts of Patreon levels including some of my favorites, Bantha Buddy, Tarkin’s Underwear Drawer, and Hot tub hangout, which all have fabulous rewards and super great names.

Xianna’fan is played by Lilit Penrod. They can be found on Twitter at @cheerio_buffet.

Tink is played by Hudson Jameson. He can be found on Twitter at @hudsonjameson.

Karma Nailo is played by me, Cameron Robertson. You can find me on Twitter at @midnightmusic13.

Our game master is Nick Robertson, and you can find him on Twitter at @alias58.

Our intro song is Space Jam by Pablo Ribot.

Additional music by James Gunter.

Follow the podcast on Twitter and Instagram at @Tabletop_Squad and join our Discord and share all your cute pet photos with us. We also sometimes talk about Star Wars. You can find a link to join our Discord on our website and in our pinned tweet. See you next time.